Life After Yes Read Free Page A

trapped in huge white handcuffs, and each groom dangled a key,” I say. “As if I were to choose.”
    â€œHandcuffs? Kinky, Quinn. And here I thought you were the square attorney type.”
    I shut him up with my eyes. “The music stopped and the judge slammed his mallet. He said, ‘Prudence, do you take…’ and then he named all of the guys’ names, ‘…to be your lawful husband.’”
    â€œWait—”
    â€œLet me finish,” I say.
    â€œOkay, but please tell me you said no,” Victor mock-pleads.
    â€œNo, I said what a happy bride is supposed to say at the altar on her big day. I said ‘I do.’ Then my handcuffs were gone and then so were the keys. Everyone clapped. Everyone was happy. I didn’t know whether I was supposed to kiss all of them, but then there was a loud noise, a piercing scream. It came from the jury box, from a little girl,my flower girl. And at first I didn’t recognize her. She was screaming , but then I realized who she was…”
    â€œWho was she?” Victor asks.
    â€œIt was me . As a little girl. And when I realized this, I passed out, but my husbands—yes, husband s , all of them—they caught me. And then everything went black.”
    â€œGnarly dream, girl,” he says. Now, our time really is up.” Victor’s next client, a portly CEO type, white and bald as a golf ball, hovers, scratching his crotch.
    I follow Victor to the back of the gym. To the massage tables where trainers stretch their clients. I hop on one and lie down flat, like I always do.
    â€œI have a question,” he says, grabbing my leg and straightening it out.
    â€œHit me,” I say. I’m sweaty and nervous. My pulse: rapid-fire.
    â€œWho’s Prudence?”
    â€œThat’s me. My name’s really Prudence.”
    Confusion contorts his face, rearranging his features. “That one can wait until Wednesday, Miss Witness Protection Freak. You said there were three. Three grooms. But you named only two.”
    â€œNo, there were three.”
    Now he’s rubbing my shoulders, getting the kinks out like he does at the end of every session. “Well, who was the last guy?” he asks.
    I pause. I realize something. The music charges on. CNN terror alerts scream silently from muted televisions. Hurried souls braid in and out of each other, racing off to work with sopping hair and untied sneakers. Business as usual. The gym smells of sweat and burnt coffee.
    â€œIt was you.”

Chapter 2
    I n the locker room, nipples face north and south. Cobalt and eggplant veins stretch like spiderwebs over winter white skin. Floppy breasts and varicose veins welcome me. Mozart floats faintly from camouflaged speakers, drowned out by the buzz of hair dryers and morning gossip. Near the entrance, a squat woman in faded black stacks warm towels that smell like marzipan. A middle-aged woman sits naked and cross-legged, raving to no one in particular about her daughter’s performance in the holiday play. The room smells like burning hair and watermelon shampoo. Bodies snake by each other in various stages of undress; some are swaddled in crisp towels far too small for coverage. Some sport stringy thongs; others, sensible briefs. Many wear nothing at all.
    A skeletal woman with a forest of pubic hair stands in front of the mirror, hips jutted forward, cleaning her nostrils with Q-tips. She leaves the yellowed and bloody cotton swabs on the faux granite countertop, angering the womanwho stands next to her painting a freckled face with makeup many shades too orange.
    I sit on the bench in the middle of the locker room, hunched over, ponytail flipped, eyes fixed on my tattered gray New Balances and the sea blue floor of tiles, wondering what’s wrong with me. Victor’s arrogant grin is tattooed in the front of my mind.
    â€œQuinn!”
    I turn and see Avery, my oldest friend and fellow West Sider. She